


Proximity

by feroxargentea



Series: Proximity [1]
Category: Master and Commander - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-07
Updated: 2010-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-14 10:06:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feroxargentea/pseuds/feroxargentea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a child is born in a distant land, and a wise man bearing gifts follows a star. Well, sort of. Thanks to cj2017 for kind words and anatomical consultancy *g*<br/>No spoilers. Written for the 2010 perfect_duet Christmas Calendar</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proximity

Returned from a long dusty irksome jolting donkey-ride towards the interior, Stephen Maturin dismounted wearily at the white-pillared house, a pleasant quiet retreat to which Jack had been moved for his convalescence four weeks previously. He was met at the door by the Captain’s steward, muttering something of which the audible portion was “Gadding about – dark of the moon – break ’is bleeding neck and the Captain’s ’eart God save us…”

“Nonsense, Killick, the starlight is quite sufficient. That egregiously effulgent specimen near the horizon gives near as much light as a moon.”

“That ain’t a moon nor a star neither, that’s Wenus, the planet Wenus.”

“Ah? I shall tell Captain Aubrey that Venus guided my steps. Or perhaps I shall not. How is himself?”

“Crotchety, sir, which it ain’t a surprise, cooped up ’ere in the arse-end of nowhere.”

Stephen gave the steward a sharp look, but his long bewhiskered face was innocent of all expression.

“He has had little enough to entertain him since the _Surprise_ sailed, sure.”

“Captain Pullings was ’ere though, got in this morning and toiled up ’ere post-’aste. ’E’s gone back to the _Thisbe_ , though. You missed ’im by a good couple of hours.”

“Tom Pullings? He was not looked for before Thursday.”

“Aye, well, someone lit a fire under ’im, seeming. Was you needing wittles? Because there ain’t no bread, not since them young buggers pardon me them young gentlemen as came with Captain Pullings et it all. Sir.”

“I was not. I had bread and meat on the journey.” Stephen patted the donkey affectionately and removed two parcels from the panniers. “These two packets are to be delivered to the harbour-master by your own hands now, Killick, if you please, the chit is to be signed and returned to Captain Aubrey, and Roser is to be restored to her farm by nine o’clock or there will be the Devil to pay with hot pitch.”

Killick, long-acquainted with the Doctor’s nautical lingo, kept his countenance carefully blank as he took the parcels. “Half a glass past that already, ain’t it?”

“Is it, so? In that case pray crack on, make all sail.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Stephen started for the stairs, repeating “All sail” to himself with some satisfaction.

 

***

 

“Ah, there you are, Stephen. I stayed up, as you see, in case you should return tonight.”

Jack was half-propped, half-recumbent on the chaise longue that had been Stephen’s unofficial bed for several weeks, covered in a thin sheet that did little to hide the gauntness of his frame. His hair, cropped two months since, fell unwashed and dark over his sunken eyes. The copious pathological sweat of the high-fever days had yielded to a laudable sudation, now abating; the sheet was scarcely damp.

“I specified that you were not to be moved, did I not? Am I to be gone but three days and my clear orders disregarded?”

Ignoring protests, Stephen led Jack back to the canopied bed, one hand supporting a wrist in which ulna and radius were too clearly palpable and the other arm across the unnaturally protuberant vertebrae of Jack’s lumbar spine. Having helped Jack onto the mattress, Stephen perched beside his supine form, covertly assessing the degree of muscular atrophy in his limbs.

“Your journey was profitable, I trust?” The effort it took Jack to keep his voice steady was immediately apparent.

“Moderately so, I thank you. The lady was possessed of a certain amount of information on the matter we discussed previously, nothing of great import, but-” He glanced at the door. Killick’s errands left them safe from eavesdropping for at least an hour, but there was no necessity for further prolixity. “I found that I was obliged to cut the visit short, to hoist sail prematurely, so as not to induce jealousy in…”

“I was not…”

“…in the lady’s husband, an infernally interfering illiberal lobcock of a fellow. We will not be able to make further use of her, I fear.” He studied Jack with curiosity, the interruption hanging in the air. Dark infraorbital shadows were startlingly clear on a pinched face hardly distinguishable in colour from the age-yellowed bed-linen except for two patches of sudden deep flush on the prominent zygomae. “I did not anticipate you would attempt a resurrection in my absence.”

“I did not mean… And in any case, Stephen, you have waited on me long enough. I am sorry you have spiked your guns with the lady, burnt your bridges before you got to them. But you will not have heard the news, the good news?”

“Haruspex I am not, neither augur.”

“No one would think it of you, I am sure. The _Thisbe_ is in harbour. There, brother, ain’t you amazed, amazed and delighted?”

“Tom Pullings is arrived early, I find.”

“By this morning’s tide, and he is to take us home this Tuesday sennight, was you to sanction the move, that is. Lord, it is long enough since we were home.”

Stephen smiled; there was no malice in Jack’s words, and truly Catalunya was no more home by now than The Grapes or indeed Ashgrove.

“And I have not told you the best of it. Mrs Pullings was delivered of a third son this December just gone, and had the good, the _excellent_ taste to name him after you, and Tom means to ask you to stand godfather, if it be possible, which we were not sure, you being a Papist, you know. We could not tell what the Articles of, the rules of - that is to say…”

“Martin will advise us on that, sure, my dear, and I will drink the child’s health with Tom if he calls again tomorrow. Sophie will know what is to be done. A silver spoon is the thing, is it not? Engraved with your heathenish English spelling, I suppose.”

When Jack failed to rise to the bait, Stephen regarded him clinically. Jack’s face was returned to its now-habitual pallor, his eyelids drooping. Stephen took his wrist again, feeling for the pulse with his left hand as Jack’s fingers curled around his right.

“I am glad you are come back, Stephen.”

“Of course I am come back. Did you think I would be lost in Lleida, that I know as the back of my hand, or the back of yours? Sleep now, joy. You ought not to have moved at all.”

“You will stay? On the chaise longue?”

“I will stay here, if you choose.”

Jack’s breathing gradually steadied and deepened. Stephen leant over him and touched his lips to Jack’s forehead: warm but not pyrexic, with diminishing sudation. He gently released his hand from Jack’s grip and curled up his legs as far as he could, making himself as comfortable as his narrow portion of the bed allowed. He sighed once, closed his eyes, and waited for sleep or for morning.


End file.
